(the Count aptly called it a long-drawn-out A-minor chord), I should
not hear anything rational. Of the ardor with which they play, you can
form no more conception than of their slovenliness and lack of
elegance and precision." Handel appears to be mentioned only once in
all of Schumann's correspondence ("I consider 'Israel in Egypt' the
ideal of a choral work"), but Bach is always on his tongue. The
following is one of the profoundest criticisms ever written: "Mozart
and Haydn knew of Bach only a few pages and passages, and the effect
which Bach, if they had known him in all his greatness, would have had
on them, is incalculable. The harmonic depth, the poetic and humorous
qualities of modern music have their source chiefly in Bach:
Mendelssohn, Bennett, Chopin, Hiller, all the so-called Romanticists
(I mean those of the German school) _approximate in their music much
closer to Bach than to Mozart_."

To Wagner there are several references, betraying a most remarkable
struggle between critical honesty and professional jealousy. Thus, in
1845, Schumann writes to Mendelssohn of "Tannhäuser:"

"Wagner has just finished a new opera--no doubt a clever fellow, full
of eccentric notions, and bold beyond measure. The aristocracy is
still in raptures over him on account of his 'Rienzi,' but in reality
he cannot conceive or write four consecutive bars of good or even
correct music. What all these composers lack is the art of writing
pure harmonies and four-part choruses. The music is not a straw better
than that of 'Rienzi,' rather weaker, more artificial! But if I should
write this I should be accused of envy, hence I say it only to you, as
I am aware that you have known all this a long time."

But in another letter to Mendelssohn, written three weeks later, he